HarperCollins
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Publisher starts annual e-book licensing for libraries, attempts blood extraction from stone
Public libraries are en vogue again now that e-readers and e-books are so popular, and publishers are wary of the trend. To the dismay of many and the surprise of few, HarperCollins Publishers has set its e-books to expire after 26 rentals -- effectively giving them around a one-year shelf life (assuming 2 weeks per rental x 26 = 52 weeks). So now cash-strapped public libraries have to pony up license fees on an annual basis because the publisher is concerned that "selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book ecosystem." In other words, HarperCollins thinks lending e-books is costing the company money it could make selling them. The publisher is the first to treat library e-books differently from hard copies, and the policy change has caused some librarians to stop purchasing HarperCollins e-books. Should the new licensing scheme become a trend, we shall see if libraries are forced to stop the electronic lending party. [Thanks, Scott]
This book has 100 Classic Books in it
Perhaps fearing that we wouldn't understand the concept of reading books on a DS, Nintendo sent press copies of the game disguised in a form that readers would find comfortable: a large, "leather"-bound, hardcover book. Only upon opening the front cover did we learn its terrible secret: it's not full of paper at all, but rather a copy of 100 Classic Books, Nintendo and HarperCollins' DS collection of literary standards. 100 Classic Books will be in stores (in a regular DS case) June 14. To browse the books included in the collection, check Nintendo's official site. %Gallery-94728%
Amazon caves to book publishers
Amazon has submitted to pressure from the major book publishers ahead of the iPad's Saturday launch. HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster will now, like Macmillan, be allowed to use an agency model that gives them control over their book's prices. "Our digital future is more assured today than it was two months ago," HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray told the Wall Street Journal. Bestsellers will now cost between $13 to $15, up from the standard $9.99. While many other books will remain at the $10 mark, some will even be priced below Amazon's old $9.99 average. Amazon and others have been very concerned over the iPad's iBookstore. Just last week, Sony cut the price of its Reader Pocket Edition while Perseus Books Group, the largest independent book publisher, ignored Amazon's threats and penned a deal to sell their books on the iPad. At the iPad unveiling, Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg that "publishers are actually withholding books from Amazon because they're not happy" and that "the prices [on the Kindle and iBookstore] will be the same." What he didn't clarify at the time was whether ebooks on Apple's iBookstore would cost what they do on the Kindle or vice versa. Now we know.
Amazon agrees to agency pricing model with two more publishers, Jobs prophecy coming to pass
Time to add HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster to the list of publishers who've managed to strongarm Amazon into acceding to their supposedly industry-saving agency pricing model. Under the new agreement, you might still see e-book versions of bestsellers priced at the familiar $9.99, but the majority will be jumping up to $12.99 and $14.99 price points, depending on the publisher's discretion. This is essentially the same deal that brought Macmillan books back to Amazon.com, and the e-tailer is believed to also be in advanced negotiations with Hatchette Book Group and Penguin Group to ensure that no book is left behind. This development was cryptically predicted by Steve Jobs mere hours after the iPad's launch and then reiterated by Rupert Murdoch with regard to HarperCollins, so we can't exactly act surprised now, but we can at least grimace a little at having to face a more expensive e-reading future.
More eBook trouble for Amazon
Amazon has run into more trouble with its pricing -- after Macmillan and HarperCollins, a third company has pressured the online book retailer to raise prices on their Kindle eBooks. This time it's the Hachette Book Group, and their CEO in an internal memo says that the company will switch to an "agency model" for eBook sales. What's an agency model? Why, it's the 70%/30% split between platform and content provider currently used in the App Store, and the same model that's planned to be used in iBooks on the iPad. And it's important to note that this is exactly what Jobs said would happen -- that publishers would move away from Amazon when they had another system to go with. What we don't yet know is where prices will end up on the iPad -- Jobs said that prices would be "the same," and it's looking more and more like the $9.99 bestseller price is going to be abandoned for $14.99 or even higher. But that's only because Amazon is fighting shadows with the iPad right now. If they can actually woo some content back to their side when the iPad actually releases, we may see prices get a little more competitive. Until then, the iPad hasn't even come out and it's already shaking up the ebook industry completely.
HarperCollins pressuring Amazon to hike Kindle prices
The iPad is still a few months away from actual release, but it already has publishers scrambling to be in the right place when the revolution comes. First, Amazon gave in to Macmillan's bid to raise prices on their own store, and now HarperCollins is putting the pressure on that same site to raise eBook prices from $9.99 up to $14.99 or higher. Amazon finds itself in between a rock and an iPad -- if they don't give in to publishers' demands, they could find themselves abandoned for an exclusive Apple deal, but if they do raise prices, sales will start dropping even before the iPad appears. Jobs predicted about this much last week in an interview with Walt Mossberg, saying that publishers would run afoul of the Amazon store, and Jobs would be more than happy to pick them up in iBooks. But the real question is: how much will Apple charge? Historically, Jobs has been pretty antagonistic on pricing against content providers, only recently giving in to the first price increase in the history of iTunes. At the Apple event the other week, Jobs said on stage that prices on the Kindle and the iPad for books would be "the same," so while fleeting images of the iPad showed bestsellers at around $10 (which is what Amazon charges), it's possible that Jobs would go with the $14.99 price to woo publishers over to his side. It'll be an interesting battle -- when the iTunes music store first opened, there basically were no strong competitors in terms of other online music retailers. With the iBooks service, Jobs and the iPad are wading into already populated waters. And while Amazon is feeling the heat of the iPad even before it's on store shelves, odds are that they're not going to go down without an eventual fight.
WSJ: Apple wants e-books to be $12.99 or $14.99 for hardcover best sellers
Here's a little price snippet on Apple's e-book plans, care of an eleventh hour Wall Street Journal piece. According to the article, the gang in Cupertino is asking book publishers (HarperCollins was specifically cited) to set the price point for digital versions of hardcover bestsellers at either $12.99 or $14.00, "with fewer titles offered at $9.99." The publisher apparently has the option to set its own price, but at any rate, Apple's taking the usual 30% cut from each sale -- a $14.99 novel would thus leave about $10.49 for the publisher. Nothing else to glean from this other than a rather strongly-phrased assertion that tomorrow's tablet has a 10-inch touchscreen, but no indication on where that's coming from. These prices would put Apple's selection at a premium compared with Amazon and its Kindle store, but perhaps it'll also be bypassing any rumored digital delay on new works -- question is, if Apple really is entering the e-book business and bringing with it higher prices, will it let us import our digital books purchased from other stores? What say you, Mr. McGraw?
WSJ: Apple tablet to have books, games, music, TV, will make sandwiches
The Wall Street Journal just laid out a doozy of an Apple tablet rumor piece, all from anonymous sources, "people familiar with the matter," and the like. There's a lot to go through, so without further ado: The tablet will come with a virtual keyboard -- kind of a no-brainer if it's gonna be a keyboard-less tablet and not, say, another laptop. Apple's been talking with The New York Times, Conde Nast, and HarperCollins / News Corp. over how they could collaborate. When asked, NYT Chairman Arthur Sulzberger would only say "stay tuned." Electronic Arts has been working closely to prep games for the tablet. We know of a number of gaming journalists who've gotten invites to next week's event, and given Apple's heavy games push over the past year or so, this wouldn't surprise us in the least. A reaffirmation of earlier murmurings about potentially swapping Google for Bing as the default search engine. Maps, too! Those TV subscription rumors? Apparently the gang in Cupertino have been pitching a "best of TV" service that would package the best four to six shows per channel. A web-based version of iTunes, tentatively called iTunes.com and potentially launching in June, for buying music outside of the dedicated app. Additionally, there'd be a new initiative "to populate as many webs ites as possible with 'buy' buttons, integrating iTunes transactions into activities like listening to internet radio and surfing review web sites." No mention if music will be downloaded or streamed from the cloud, but we can definitely see how Apple's recent Lala acquisition would play into this in the future -- in fact, we've already seen it start to bear fruit. Here's a weird one: Apple has supposedly designed the tablet "so that it is intuitive to share." One such experiment is virtual sticky notes that launch for the intended recipient by facial recognition via built-in camera. If nothing else, we're really looking forward to next week putting a large clamp on the torrent of tablet rumors that have have propagated the internet for the last few months.
Report: Harper Collins, Apple negotiating tablet deal
The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Apple is in talks with Harper Collins regarding ebooks for the new tablet. They suggest that the publisher will set the prices of the books with Apple taking a cut, in similar fashion to the 30/70 split currently in place for the App Store (but percentages not determined). The most interesting line notes that the ebooks "...will have added features." Back in December, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray noted that "...e-books enhanced with video, author interviews and social-networking applications" were a possibility. Just watch this demo from Sports Illustrated to get an idea of the potential. While consumers love the über-cheap prices being offered on the Kindle and the Nook, publishers would undoubtedly like to bump them up a little. These additional features will serve both the consumer and the publisher: Shoppers get a more interesting ebook experience, wrapped in Apple style, while publishers receive a bigger payday. The Wall Street Journal notes that other publishers have been talking with Apple without offering any additional details. Now that we have a firm date for the tablet's introduction (probably, maybe) the rumors are going to swirl ever faster. Hold on to your seats. [Via Engadget]
WSJ: Apple and HarperCollins negotiating e-book deal for tablet
Here's the skinny from The Wall Street Journal: major publishing company HarperCollins is in talks with Apple about bringing e-books to the oft-rumored, still-unconfirmed tablet that's expected to be the focus of its January 27th event. The article also states that other publishing companies have been in talks with Cupertino HQ. That jibes with what we've heard through the grapevine, specifically with Time Inc. property Sports Illustrated, and fits comfortably well with the New York Times conjecture from earlier today. E-book readers are all the rage these days, but like we said just after CES, we'd wager the future of the medium integrated into slates to provide rich, color multimedia presentations. Seems someone might be sharing in our perspective, but of course, this is just one of many, many, many Apple rumors we expect to see in the buildup to next week.
HarperCollins now also thumbing nose at e-book industry with digital delay
Joining Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group (Stephanie Meyer, James Patterson) in delaying e-books months after their hardcover releases? HarperCollins, home to Neil Gaiman and the Lemony Snicket series. Beginning in 2010, five to ten books released each month will be given a physical head start lasting anywhere from four weeks to six months. Similar justification as before, the prevailing worry is that the cheaper digital copies so early in a title's release will make for "fewer literary choices for customers" because publishers won't be as willing to take a risk on new writers. It's not necessarily the most sound of arguments, but still we can imagine some short term harm to the e-book industry. Question is, how long can these arbitrary delays last? [Thanks, Joe]
V-Books: the future
You know, once in a while you hear such a logical, well-thought-out idea that you start to wonder, even fear, that society will end up heading down some sort of interesting and completely boring path to productivity and peace. This is not that idea. HarperCollins has restored our faith in the wonderful futility of humanity with "Video Books." The publishing house is on the hook for six v-book versions of real books, which involve an ultra-abridged version of the title being spoken directly to the camera by the author. The first of these is Jeff Jarvis' book What Would Google Do?, which is 23 minutes of the man speaking to your face in front of a white backdrop, and retails for $10. We were hoping for something a bit more like Reading Rainbow, but we must admit the two minute preview we saw was strangely compelling. Authors receive 25 percent of the sales, on par with e-book rates, but can you really put a royalty rate on the future?Read - HarperCollins Tries 'Video Books'Read - What Would Google Do? V-Book
Creator of Discworld meets virtual world
Terry Pratchett is coming to visit Second Life. Go back and read that again. Yes, it's true. While Pratchett's Discworld series alone has sold 55 million globally in 35 countries, you'll probably not find a single, larger concentration of fans of his work than in Linden Lab's Second Life. Indeed, the virtual environment already has cadres of role-players, recreations of various Discworld settings, and Discworld-themed merchandise. Sometime on Thursday 11 September (UK time) an island called "The Nation" (not yet visible within Second Life -- though heaven knows, we looked for it) is supposed to open for one month, until Friday 10 October. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
